Call Me Ishmael

Chapter 4

Author's note: This is a true story, in that the truth is contained in the story.  Trust me.  I'm an author.   The book remains on sale at Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords, unless the government has ordered its removal.

“The truth?  What are you talking about?  You don't even know me.”

My life, which had seemed so humdrum and ordinary just that morning, turned out to have been a narrative of events ordered in a precise sequence to bring me to the point in time in which I found myself.  A master plan?  Maybe.    

The truth was, I had no idea why the name Ishmael came to my lips.  I was not middle-eastern; I was Middle American.  I was born in a small town along a chocolate brown river deep in the eastern hills of Ohio.  The Hocking Hills were my playground; we were poor, so we walked everywhere we went, including to school.  Uphill both ways, of course.  

My parents raised me in a small plywood cabin, heated by scrap coal.  We didn't have much, and the responsibility for that rested solely on my father, Melvin Ville.  My father was a driven man; an obsessive personality; he felt honor bound to pursue every right he believed had been granted to him by both the United States Constitution and the State of Ohio.  I remember clearly the night he left our cabin for the last time, carrying a dog-eared copy of the complete Federalist Papers under his arm, telling my mother and I not to wait up.  There was going to a rally, or a riot, or something, concerning the legality of Ohio’s statehood.  In 1803, Congress had failed to formally admit the Buckeye State, which meant the Income Tax Amendment was unconstitutional, and that seven United States Presidents had been ineligible to serve in that office.  Everything that everyone took for granted was based on a single lie.  

“Knock out the lie, and the truth will set you free.”  That's what he told me.  It was the last thing I ever heard him say, because he never came home.  My mother told me he had been killed in a car accident on the way to his meeting, and never made it there.   

Finnie interrupted my ruminations.  “Ishmael, your father is alive.”

“What?”  I could not have been more startled if she had suddenly grown a second head.  

“Your father is alive.”

I laughed.  “You’ve got the wrong guy.  My dad died when I was a kid.  My mother told me.  Are you calling my mother a liar?”

Finnie was somehow able to simultaneously convey life-changing information and keep her eyes on the road.  “No.  Listen to me.  He’s alive.  He’s being held in an undisclosed location because the information he ferreted out has the potential to turn this country upside down.  Maybe the whole world.  And maybe more than that.”

I swallowed.  I recalled some of Dad's crackpot theories.  “Tell you what.  Why don’t you go ahead and stop the car, I’ll get out, and I’ll get home.  You’re driving a little too fast anyway, and maybe there’s someone looking for you.”

Finnie leaned into the wheel, pushing the car hard to the right, avoiding a deer.  As fast as we were going, I was still able to look directly into its large brown eyes.  They were no more startled than mine were, I’m sure.

“They warned me you’d be difficult.  Listen.”

I prepared myself.  With the car now exceeding one hundred miles per hour, there was no other alternative.  

“Your father is Melvin Ville.”

“Was, yes.  There must be a hundred Mel Villes in America.  You’ve got the wrong guy.  And if you know so much, tell me:  why are people trying to kill me?”